February 14, 2004

More Human Behavior on Amazon.com. So Amazon tries to control abuse by reviewers by having people rate the reviewers, but then it ranks the reviewers and the reviewers game the reviewer ranking system.

[T]he site's discussion boards are full of carping about how people are trying to play that system, too. Many prolific reviewers speculate that Harriet Klausner, 55, who has long reigned as No. 1, cannot possible read all the books she reviews.

(And the NYT "cannot possible" proofread all the text it sees fit to print.)

Klausner, according to the Times, accuses "the No. 2 reviewer of getting people to vote for him and against her in a 'desperate attempt to be No. 1.'"